Chinua Achebe Quotes

Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.

Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.

Surely modesty never hurt any cause; and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man.

Humility is the forgetfulness of self.

Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.

Humility is not an exaggeratedly low opinion of yourself. Humility is self-forgetfulness.

Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.

Modesty is the delicate form of hypocrisy.

Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice; and yet everybody is content to hear.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

You can't embarrass Joss Whedon, he's got no pride! He fully admits it. 'Oh, it's me. I'm little and goofy.' You can't wound his pride. He's too self-deprecating.

False modesty can be worse than arrogance.

I detest self-regard. If my work has taught me anything, it is that self-aggrandisement is completely unhistorical.

Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.

Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are.

A false modesty is the meanest species of pride.

Humility is, of all graces, the chiefest when it does not know itself to be a grace at all.

Humility is like a tree, whose root when it sets deepest in the earth rises higher, and spreads fairer and stands surer, and lasts longer, and every step of its descent is like a rib of iron.

If there's anything I'm not pompous about, it's myself or my work. But I seem to be able to play it.

True humility scarcely ever utters words of humility.

Don't be humble... you're not that great.

Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.

One may be humble out of pride.

Modesty is not one of my virtues.

The thing I hate most is false modesty. The artists who are, like, 'Oh, you know, I'm really not that good. Oh, I can't believe I'm here.' I find it vaguely sinister, even.